US to open more frontline roles for women

The US defence secretary Leon Panetta has elaborated on yesterday's news that the US will open more frontline roles for women in the military. He says the US will eliminate a rule excluding women from direct ground combat.

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TONY EASTLEY: While still in Washington the US defence secretary Leon Panetta has elaborated on yesterday's news that the US will open more frontline roles for women in the military.

He says the US will eliminate a rule excluding women from direct ground combat.

Reporter Brendan Trembath is in Washington and he joins us now.

Brendan, good morning. How did Leon Panetta explain the shift in policy?

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Good morning Tony. About 15 per cent of the US defence force is women. Leon Panetta says the reality is men and women are fighting and dying together. In more than a decade of war 152 women in uniform have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He says that a 1994 rule barring women from direct combat, that will be rescinded and the department will work to eliminate all unnecessary gender based barriers. So there still is some way to go. He says if women can meet the qualifications for the job then they can serve.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey was standing alongside. He pointed out that one of the US TV networks here has been running a misleading headline stating "Women about to be allowed to serve in combat". Here's what he said.

MARTIN DEMPSEY: We're way beyond that and that's part of the point here is that women are serving in combat and have been. In fact in 2003 when I got to Baghdad as the Commander of 1st Armour Division my first foray out of the forward operating base, I hopped into the up-armoured humvee and I asked the driver who he was, where he was from.

And I slapped the turret gunner round the leg and I said, "Who are you?" And she leaned down and said "I'm Amanda". And I said, "Oh okay".

(Laughter)

So female turret gunner protecting division commander. And it's from that point on that I realised something had changed and it was time to do something about it.

TONY EASTLEY: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey. Brendan Trembath reporting from Washington.